Does anyone remember their childhood? Mine was full of great saturday and early weekday mornings tuning in to watch some cool cartoons. Anyone else remember James Bond Jr.? Well on an impulse, I went ahead and rediscovered one of these old cartoon favorites, otherwise known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. After having reviewed the first two seasons, I can say that the show is still surprisingly good. For one thing, the show maintains a great sense of continuity in each episode and the writers make use of each new small change to the best of their ability. Unfortunately the turtles themselves are more annoying than cool now at my age and Shredder comes off as whiney. Bebop and Rocksteady are morons that never pose a threat, but besides all of this there is a genius behind the episodes. Not only does the show have the turtles eating pizza and kicking ninja butt, it also contains a bunch of lessons on taking care of the environment and makes constant reference to previous pop culture. Out of the two seasons I saw direct correlations in the series to Frankenstein and other old horror films. In fact, I didn't remember this, but apparently the turtles love watching old horror movies as well and chowin down on a great pie. The show is different from the recent series and the comics which have a darker and more dangerous feel in that it is very bright and lighthearted. The best part of the series is rediscovering Kranggs relationship with Shredder and how he completely humiliates him. Since the show was heavily censored due to it being for kids and all, the bad guys are always either robots or mutants, which since they aren't human made it okay to make the fights more violent. It's also enjoyable to figure out the environmental take of the series which constantly re-enforces the idea that technology itself is neither good nor bad, it depends on how you use it. This is best exemplified in the evil of Shredder/krangg. They constantly build evil machines to try and takeover people or kill things and fail. Whereas other technology is put to better use such as Donatello's various and myriad inventions. The best episode of the first two episodes that details this struggle is the episode about REX-1 the robocop knockoff where entire robocop type terminators are made by shredder and the one good cop model takes them on as best as it can. The constant references to geeky pop culture is made not only in passing dialogue, but also in various art designs that I find really surprising because I never recognized any of these things as a kid but looking back on it I am given a new depth to explore with the series. I truly believe that this series is one of the few true great cartoon series since it means and conveys different things to different generations of people. Therefore people, please comment back and discuss the series and things you noticed. Your child hood memories and even some of your favorite quotes. So far here are two of my favorite quotes;
"Being a 7 foot tall robot means never having to say your sorry."-REX-1
"A Micro-rocket. Brilliant!" - Dregg
Also, hit me up with your favorite characters from the series and why. Here's mine.
5. Baxtor-yea he sucked as a human but he invented mowsers and then became an awesome Fly mutant which significantly increased his shooting aim. Too bad he was kicked out of the universe forever by the end of the second season.
4. Krangg - hell yea a giant talking brain with a warble of one of the three stooges. Who also happens to own a technological palace the size of three football stadiums and who resides in his technologically advanced metallic body that can mutate matter and stuff.
3.Bebop - it's true that Bebop and Rocksteady are terrible thugs who always foul up, but Bebop carries grenades and a giant bone necklace around his neck. Plus he has those great purple 80's glasses/visors. Also, he is a better fighter than Rocksteady, he is harder than Rocksteady in the old-school videogame and in the episode where they attack the turtles in the sewers, Bebop is the only one who gets a couple of good knocks on the turtles.
2. Splinter-I'm sorry, but what's not cool about this guy? He can "sense" things in the future and distance related. He is a former ninja master. He's a giant mutant rat who has four easy to train and fairly straight forward turtle ninjas to do hi bidding. His only drawback is that sometimes, his "enigmnatic sayings" are either not very enigmatic or really don't make a damn lick of sense because they are restating themselves. But oh well, he is a rat and he has to have one flaw.
1. April O'Neal - I never realized it, but I guess I owe my appreciation of the female body to the always yellow clad April. She's a struggling reporter who fights with turtles and protects them from a hateful public. Yea, okay, Spiderman knock off, why care? JUST LOOK AT HER CHEST! Wow! I had forgotten how much I enjoyed watching the show as a child. Also, she does the whole Catwoman thing in one of her episodes as well. She was my original archetype for the hot woman and for that there will always be a place in my dvd library for her.
If you want to know why Shredder isn't included, its because in the cartoon series he is really whiney and completely not dangerous. In the old movies, heck yea! He ruled with his sharp suited self. Easy shave and all. Anyhow, I look forward to reading your thoughts and favorites. peace!
Wannabe
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OK so TMNT, I too loved Baxter and Krang but mostly because of the Technodrome. How many times did the turtles go through or get trapped in that glorious death staresque fortress, and how many times did i play through that level on the Game Boy game (TMNT Fall of the Foot Clan) only to be taken down by a gang of mousers or a wrong move with Krang's giant exosuit before I could send him back to dimension X? I also loved the few episodes where Casey Jones was allowed to kick butt with his sporting goods equipment or the Tricerton Republic episodes (from later seasons) that combined my love for dinosaurs and cartoons. Which brings me to other shows from the same period of cartoons that are not as well remembered- Dino Riders (I need to find the rest of this series...), Street Sharks, Biker Mice From Mars(although it was horrible), and Battletoads. Thank you wannabe for some childhood revisiting.
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